Daily Archives: March 8, 2012

MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST — The Senate has approved using the bulk of water pollution fines stemming from the 2010 Gulf oil spill to pay for restoration in five Gulf states. The BP oil company could be fined $5.4 billion to $21.1 billion under the Clean Water Act, depending on whether it’s found grossly negligent. The money typically goes into a ...

A pair of identical Mississippi House and Senate bills that tinker with compensation calculations for public employee retirement purposes survived last Tuesday’s cutoff for advancing out of committees. Legislators held off this year tackling major reforms to the Public Employees Retirement System suggested by former Gov. Haley Barbour’s 12-member study commission. Barbour created the commission and pushed for aggressive reforms ...

JACKSON — The Mississippi House has passed a bill to let mid-sized municipalities in dry counties decide if they wish to allow sales of liquor by the glass at restaurants and hotels. Voters in municipalities with at least 5,000 people would be allowed petition for a vote on the issue. At least 20 percent of registered voters would have to ...

Add “pink slime” meat to the school lunch menu offerings from the folks who wanted to classify catchup as a vegetable on school menus. In a story Thursday headlined “Partners in Slime,” The Daily reports that the government is buying pink-slime looking ammonia-treated beef scraps by the tons for school lunches. Here’s the story.

DIAMONDHEAD — A consultant has proposed four wards for the newly incorporated city of Diamondhead in Hancock County. Mayor Chuck Ingraham tells the Sea Coast Echo the draft map from Bridge and Watson of Oxford is step one of the election process of June 2013. Ingraham says public hearings will be held on the proposed ward lines. Each proposed ward ...

RIDGELAND — A federal judge has pushed back until May the trial of a couple charged with knowingly using illegal immigrants at their irrigation company in central Mississippi. The trial had been scheduled for April in U.S. District Court in Jackson, but has been postponed until May 21. A federal indictment says Paul and Barbara Love used illegal immigrants as ...

JACKSON — Efforts to hold the line on Mississippi’s Medicaid spending are getting more daunting. The state Medicaid agency told House members yesterday that without changes, it now needs almost $884 million for the budget year that begins July 1. That’s up from the $870 million that the agency had previously requested. Gov. Phil Bryant is only asking lawmakers for ...

JACKSON — Judges and prosecutors would get pay raises over four years, under a plan the Mississippi House passed yesterday. Mississippi’s circuit and chancery judges currently make $104,000 a year. The bill would increase their pay in four annual steps to $136,000 a year by 2016. Pay would also increase for district attorneys, appellate judges and county court judges. Salaries ...

BILOXI and MERIDIAN — The Air Force’s latest budget proposal would eliminate the 917th Fighter Group, a unit of 409 part-time reservists and 171 full-time technicians, at Barksdale Air Force Base. The cuts would take effect by the end of next year on the unit’s 50th anniversary. The Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse is not slated for any Air ...

JACKSON — The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled today that some pardons issued by former Gov. Haley Barbour are valid. In their 6-3 opinion, the justices wrote “we are compelled to hold that — in each of the cases before us — it fell to the governor alone to decide whether the Constitution’s publication requirement was met.” Republican Barbour pardoned 198 ...